Winnie Johnson, the mother of Moors' victim Keith, begged her family to find her murdered son so he can be buried next to her.

Her final wish before she died of cancer in a Manchester Hospice was to have her 12-year-old child's body placed beside hers if he is ever found.

The 78-year-old was tormented by killer Ian Brady to her deathbed, and spent much of her life pleading in vain for Brady and his accomplice Myra Hindley, who died in 2002, to help her find Keith’s body so that she could give him a Christian burial.

Evil: Ian Brady refused to show mercy on Mrs Johnson, taunting her until her death

She spent 48 years making countless visits to the moors, where his body was believed to have been hidden, in her fight to find her son's body and vowed to keep on searching 'until the end of her days.'

But Brady and Hindley never revealed where Keith's remains were and she never discovered them.

Her last plea to her family was that they find her son's body and bury him next to her - and she has asked that they keep a plot next to her grave empty so she can lay beside him, the Mirror reported.

The last time the heartbroken mother saw her 12-year-old son Keith was when he waved goodbye as he walked to his grandmother’s house in Longsight, Manchester, on June 16, 1964.

As he walked along he was snatched off the street by Brady and Hindley – becoming the third of their five known victims.

For 20 years, Mrs Johnson never knew what happened to her son until Brady and Hindley confessed to murdering him on Saddleworth Moor, Greater Manchester.

He is the only one of their five victims whose body has never been recovered.

Mrs Johnson, who was 78, made several thousand trips to the Moors in search of her son and has written to every prime minister since he disappeared, begging for help.

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Even recently, with her health failing, she refused to give up, employing private firms with sniffer dogs to try to locate Keith’s remains.

At the time she said: ‘I’ll never stop searching until he’s found. I’ll go on and on until I bring him home. When he’s found, I’ll know I’ve done my duty as a mother. I’ll be at ease then.’

Tireless: Winnie Johnson digging with her son on Saddleworth Moor near Manchester as they hunt for Keith's body

In an interview she said that she feared Moors Murderer Ian Brady would never reveal the whereabouts of her 12-year-old son's body in a 'final sick twist'

Mrs Johnson wrote ‘hundreds’ of letters to Brady
begging him to reveal where Keith’s body is buried before she died,
including a heartfelt plea in December revealing the extent of her
illness.

But he taunted her until her death, refusing to say where he had dumped her child's body.

Her death came days after a letter written
by the killer supposedly revealed where he and Hindley had buried her
12-year-old son in 1964.

He allegedly penned a letter to Mrs
Johnson and handed it to his mental health advocate Jackie Powell, who
revealed on television that he told her it was only to be passed to the
distraught mother when he died, claiming it would 'give her peace'.

Meanwhile 74-year-old Brady’s health was
reported to be fading amid claims that after 13 years on hunger strike,
injuries he sustained after a seizure last month meant he is now too ill
to be force-fed.

Gravely ill Winnie Johnson died after her battle with cancer, never knowing where Keith's remains are

Resting place: Mrs Johnson wants her son buried next to her if her family ever discover his whereabouts

The police have been slammed for dragging their heels in the hunt for his body – after nearly 50 years of fruitless searching.

Mrs Johnson's son Alan Bennett, 56, wrote on the website searchingforkeith.com that he feared with his mother's death, the police and media coverage of the hunt for his brother would end.

He accused police of apathy, saying that two credible witnesses have recently come forward with new information about the case but detectives had failed to act.

Mr Bennett, who was nine when his brother disappeared, added: 'The information remains with the police and despite requests for them to act upon it still, all we receive is pointless platitudes from GMP and false statements that all new information would be treated seriously.'

FAMILY OF MOORS MURDER VICTIM VOW TO HELP WINNIE'S RELATIVES

The family of Moors murder victim John Kilbride have vowed to carry on Winnie Johnson’s 48-year search for her son.

Hours after her death, they promised to join forces with her grieving relatives and expressed relief that the 78-year-old never knew about a letter from Ian Brady which supposedly revealed the whereabouts of Keith Bennett’s remains.

Terry Kilbride - whose brother John was one of five children murdered by Brady and Myra Hindley - joined her son Alan in criticising the police for closing the case without finding Keith.

Mr Kilbride, 57, said: 'I know I’m going to and I know Alan will. It’s not just going to go away, not until Keith is found. Winnie’s family are not on their own. They have never been on their own.

'We will always be there for them. When I’m not here, I will pass it on down the family. And there’s a lot of people throughout the country who would carry it on. I just wish the police would carry on the search. But it doesn’t matter what we say - we’re just victims.'

Anne Kilbride, 57, wife of John Kilbride’s late brother Danny, said Mrs Johnson’s family had done the right thing by not telling her about the letter.

She said: 'She was a lovely lady - a heartbroken lady.

'All she wanted was to bring Keith home. I’m only glad to know she didn’t find out about the letter. We will do everything we can to help her family.'

Keith Bennett and John Kilbride were both 12 when they were snatched and murdered by Brady and Hindley in the 1960s. Pauline Reade, 16, Lesley Ann Downey, 10, and Edward Evans, 17, were also killed by the pair.

He warned: ‘As far as I am concerned, until Keith is found then he is still in the possession of Brady and Hindley.

‘Our fear as a family is that now my
mother is no longer with us, this may be seen by the police and the
media as some sort of closure to the case. This must not be allowed to
happen both out of respect for Keith and my mother’s memory and for
those of us who loved them both.’

Keith’s half-brother Kenny Johnson, 46,
added yesterday: ‘Greater Manchester Police only act when they’re
prompted. They’ve not been very helpful for years. It does all come down
to money – it wasn’t high on their list of priorities. But it’s what
people want, they want to find him.’

Greater Manchester Police declined to respond to the criticisms but Martin Bottomley, head of investigative review of the force’s major and cold case crime unit, paid tribute to Mrs Johnson for spending the majority of her life ‘courageously fighting to get justice for Keith’.

More than 100 people have already signed a petition demanding they re-open the search.

In a statement, Mrs Johnson’s family said: 'Winnie fought tirelessly for decades to find Keith and give him a Christian burial. Although this was not possible during her lifetime, we, her family, intend to continue this fight now for her and for Keith.

'We hope that the authorities and the public will support us in this.'

The family have yet to release details of her funeral.

Torment of the brother who won’t give up

By STEVE BIRD

Dogged: Alan Bennett, brother of Moors Murder victim Keith Bennett, is determined Brady should not be allowed to take his secret to the grave

Alan Bennett has cut a lonely figure
during the 20 years he has dug in the peat on the bleak and windswept
Saddleworth Moor. His tireless search has so far been in vain. And like
his mother Winnie Johnson before him, it is a quest he will pursue
doggedly until his dying day.

For
Winnie’s death at the weekend does not bring her family’s suffering to
a close. Keith’s younger brother Alan, 56, is the forgotten victim of the Moors Murders.

And the death of their mother
has made Alan more determined to find where Brady concealed Keith’s
body.

It is a search that has taken its
toll on Alan’s life in many ways: ‘It’s always on my mind – I can’t get
rid of it,’ he said. During his search, he even agreed to meet Hindley
in the hope that she might give him a clue.

What
drives him is more than brotherly love. He is also determined to ensure
that Brady is not allowed the final insult of taking his secret to the
grave.

Alan
was just eight when Keith went missing. On his website
(searchingforkeith.com) he explains how they used to share a room in the
end of terrace house in Eston Street, in the Longsight area of
Manchester. He recalls how they bent the street light which was
positioned near their bedroom window so it almost came into their room.

Alan chose to visit Hindley, pictured, in prison in the hope that she would reveal where Keith was buried. He was shocked when she grabbed his arms and sobbed as she repeatedly said sorry for her ruthless crimes

‘We
had the biggest bedside light in Longsight. The room was flooded with
an orange glow every night,’ he says. ‘Keith thought it was hilarious
when we were told to be quiet and turn the light out.’

To this day, Alan treasures his
brother’s 1962 school report card which noted how Keith struggled with
reading, despite his brother’s attempts to help him. In return, Keith
tried to teach Alan how to swim.

Alan adds: ‘Keith had little time for anything but laughter and nature. He was an ordinary, uncomplicated child.’

He recalls how Keith disappeared on June 16, 1964, four days after celebrating his birthday. ‘He just vanished from our lives.’

Determined: Mrs Johnson on the moors on the 16th June 2008 - the 44th anniversary of her son's disappearance

Within
days, the now well-known photo of his brother with a wide grin and NHS
spectacles appeared on a ‘missing’ poster in shops, on billboards and in
newspapers. Suddenly, for Alan and his other five siblings, Keith’s
disappearance marked the end of the innocence of youth.

‘He
was there one day and gone the next. I used to lie in bed at night
talking to him, saying: “Where are you Keith?” At first we used to
imagine he’d been kidnapped, then gradually you realise he’s not coming
back alive.’

Alan Bennett, pictured right, with sergeant Mick Swindells during a search in 2001 for his brother's body on Saddleworth Moor

Alan was plagued by the ‘what ifs’
about that fateful day. Even when Brady and Hindley were convicted in
1966 for the murders of John Kilbride, 12, Lesley Ann Downey, ten, and
Edward Evans, 17, the pair refused to put the Bennett family out of
their misery by admitting they had murdered Keith, too.

In
1985, Brady finally confirmed that he had murdered Keith and Pauline
Reade, 16. The confession, which came out of the blue, led Alan to begin
digging on the moors. He says: ‘It will never bring him back to life,
but finding Keith and giving him a proper burial would be a way of
bringing it to an end.

‘We
went up every weekend and dug it until we hit rock. We went down until
we couldn’t go any further.’ He was often accompanied by well-wishers
who had been moved by the family’s plight. For their part, Greater
Manchester Police called in archaeologists, anthropologists, geologists,
geophysicists and geochemists – before giving up.

Keith’s body is the only one of the
Brady’s victims not to have been found. Alan’s meeting with Hindley came
after he wrote to her and she invited him to meet her in prison.

He
was shocked when she grabbed his arms and sobbed as she repeatedly said
sorry for her ruthless crimes. But although she did provide some maps
before her death in 2002, it was not enough to pinpoint Keith’s body.

Alan’s
decision to meet the Moors Murderess horrified his mother. Anne West,
the mother of Lesley Ann Downey, also condemned him as a ‘treacherous
fool’.

But
he felt justified because Hindley was the only person likely to reveal
where his brother was buried. Later, his mother said she understood what
he had done. The search, though, at what he calls ‘that lonely place’,
has had an adverse effect on his family life. ‘I regret the effect it
had on my relationship with my son Robert, whom I hardly ever saw,’ he
says.

Aerial view of Saddleworth Moor, which murderer Hindley claims is Keith's last resting place

Last
night, someone had placed flowers on the moors near to where Alan has
spent years digging. An accompanying card reads: ‘Both together at last’
– a reference to how Keith and his mother are reunited in heaven. It
is a sentiment Alan cannot share.

‘Until
Keith is found he is still in the possession of Brady and Hindley,’ he
says. ‘Our fear as a family is now my mother is no longer with us, this
may be seen as closure.

‘This
must not be allowed to happen out of respect for Keith and my mother’s
memory. He was a son, a brother, a friend and should have been a father
and grandfather. He should have been whatever he wanted to be.’